


Let it Go to Start Again

by destroythemeek



Category: Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destroythemeek/pseuds/destroythemeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years after they last saw each other, Charlie goes to see Adam play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let it Go to Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Matt Nathanson’s “Detroit Waves.” Many thanks to poisonivory and second_batgirl for beta and encouragement!

You haven’t seen him in nearly six years, but on the ice he’s exactly the boy you remember. He skates the same, handles the stick the same, shoots the same, and as you watch him you can’t shake the feeling that no time at all has passed and you’re still his captain, still his teammate, ready to skate out with him at the next line change. Even the physical details aren’t noticeably different – the heavy bulk of hockey gear disguises growth spurts and adult muscles, the glare off the visor hides the increasing maturity of a face. The only difference, as far as you can tell, between Adam Banks, age 18 and Adam Banks, age 24, is the jersey – green and yellow has been swapped for red and white, a duck for a stylized wheel with Hermes wings.

Adam doesn’t score the winning goal, or any goal at all. The game is, overall, less than dramatic. But he plays well, and the Red Wings win, and you cheer enthusiastically from your place in the stands. Some tiny part of you feels guilty for that – the Minnesota Wild is your hometown team, and you should be rooting for them. But they’re a young team, still finding their footing, and they’ve made a distinctive habit of losing to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Rooting for a winning Duck over a losing local team is a feeling you’ve gotten to know quite well.

As the crowd begins to thin you make your way toward the locker rooms, armed with a winning smile and the storied history of your pee wee hockey team. Adam isn’t expecting you, but when you approach the security guard outside the locker room and introduce yourself, the guard’s face splits into a wide smile. “Charlie Conway! Man, I watched you guys win the Goodwill Games back in ’95. Never figured hometown kids could make it that far. Sure, I’ll go get Banks.” He gives you a thumb’s up as he turns. “Quack!”

The guard reappears less than two minutes later, which doesn’t give you very much time to second guess the instinct that took you to the arena tonight. Then suddenly Adam is in front of you, blond hair plastered to his forehead from a post-game shower, a wary half-smile on his face.

“Hey,” you say, hands in your pockets. “Nice assist.”

Adam blinks once, twice, and then he smiles, almost bashfully. “I do what I can,” he says, and there’s just enough warmth in his voice that you feel brave enough to reach out and pull him into a tight hug, gripping his right hand in your own and pounding him on the back with your left. The security guard is back at his post and the two of you are alone in the hallway, bathed in the fluorescent light that illuminates the concrete walls of the arena’s lower levels.

“Banksy, Banksy,” you say, pulling back and releasing his tautly muscled hand. “Look at you. The NHL. Still one-upping the rest of us, huh?”

He shrugs. “You could’ve been here, too,” he says. “You were just as good as I was.” But you shake your head, hoping he notes the complete absence of resentment in your face.

“Nah. I’ve always been a coach more than anything else. I’ve got a great group of kids right now, a middle school team – wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“So what are you doing here?” Adam asks, and though the answer is obvious he still seems suspicious of a sinister motive. You wonder how a boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth learned to be so wary of acts of kindness. You wonder how much you and your former teammates are responsible.

“Ducks fly together,” you say, like that’s all the answer you’ll ever need, and as far as you’re concerned it is. “It’s about time we caught up.”

~*~

You wind up back at your place, a little apartment on the west side of St. Paul you moved into the month you started teaching. It’s too late to eat and the beer in your fridge is cheaper than the beer in any bar, and Adam seems relieved to be in someone’s home after a solid month on the road. You sit together on the ratty, cat-clawed couch you picked up at a yard sale and sip from your bottles of Bud Light, telling each other stories about the last six years. You talk about your adventures in college, about the other Ducks you still keep in touch with, about being a middle school gym teacher. He talks about the friends he’s making in Detroit, about the lockout last year, about what it’s like to travel all across North America.

In the light of your living room you can see all the changes the hockey gear hid. Adam’s face seems sharper somehow, more eagle-like; his deep-set eyes look curious rather than surprised. The awkwardness of puberty fled his features long ago and left behind a face that will likely grace dozens of sports calendars before his career is through. There’s a hint of stubble around his mouth, light and scruffy, and his hair is longer and slightly darker, falling into his eyes. He’s still recognizably Adam, but he’s Adam in the trained and conditioned body of a confident professional athlete; you can see the muscles in his arms and chest through his thin polo. You spend half the conversation trying not to stare, and the other half failing completely.

You’re both on your third beers when Adam asks you if there are any girls in your life.

“Girls? Ha, no, definitely no girls,” you say, and you know you could end the answer there. But Adam is one of your oldest friends and you’ve had three beers and you’ve never been fond of lying. “No guys right now, either,” you add.

Adam’s pale eyebrows rise until they’re hidden behind his shaggy hair. “You’re…” he asks, unable or unwilling to finish the question.

“Gay? Yeah,” you say, bracing for the worst.

Adam only looks confused. “But you… you dated girls! Whatsername, in high school…”

You can’t help it; you laugh. “Yeah, in _high school_. There was a lot I didn’t realize back then. I mean, are _you_ still interested in the same person you liked when you were seventeen?”

Adam glances down at his lap, where he’s taken to detangling the fringes of the throw pillow your mother gave you last Christmas. “Yes,” he says.

He looks up again, catching your eyes, and you only have a second to realize the import of that single word before he’s leaning in to kiss you.

You never allowed yourself to want this. All the years you were friends, when you were still lying to yourself about everything, it was easy enough to push away the feelings that cropped up, as unwanted as acne and a voice that refused to change for far too long. Then Adam was a thousand miles away, living out his father’s Ivy League dreams, and you were still in Minnesota, earning your phys. ed. degree at St. Cloud State, and whatever you may once have felt didn’t seem to matter much anymore. Adam didn’t come home if he could help it, and you didn’t fly out east to visit him, and you drifted apart, the same way you drifted from most of the Ducks who went to college out of state.

But something drove you to the Xcel Energy Center tonight, and you’d be a liar if you claimed some small part of you wasn’t hoping for exactly what’s happening right now.

“Adam…” you murmur, breaking the kiss, but your hands have found their way to his shoulders and won’t let go.

“Please,” he says, and that’s all you need to hear; you pull him down on top of you and give yourself over to his heat and his desire, matching them with your own.

~*~

The next morning you wake up before Adam does, the unfortunate side effect of a teacher’s schedule, and roll over to face him on your frameless bed. Adam’s breath is slow and even on the pillow beside you, his hair wild and splayed against wall, and your own breath catches in your throat at the sight of him. You weren’t really drunk the night before and you aren’t hungover now, so the reality of your situation doesn’t slowly come to your consciousness; it’s there immediately, and somewhat depressingly.

You know this can’t work, whatever you may have said to each other last night in the heat of the moment. You can imagine the months ahead in vivid detail, and nothing about them seems appealing. You picture Adam, always on the move, stopping back in Minnesota for only a sporadic few days at a time, maybe a month or two in the off season at best. You see yourself, stuck at home and lonely from the distance, whining to Goldberg while he serves you pastrami at his family’s deli, or to Fulton as he fixes the alternator on your car. You don’t want to be that person.

And then there are the arguments you know will pop up – arguments about secrets and lies and being yourself. You haven’t lied about who you are since college, and you won’t do it now; you won’t pretend you’re a Warrior when you know you’re a Duck. But there are no out male players in any professional American sport, and you know Adam won’t risk his career or his safety to change that. You wouldn’t _want_ him to. But it doesn’t leave you many options.

Adam stirs, blinking up at you sleepily, and you remember that an athlete’s schedule isn’t any more indulgent than a teacher’s. “Morning,” you say, and you ignore the twinge of pain in your chest that accompanies the word.

Adam sits up, shaking off the mantle of sleep, and smiles cautiously in your direction.

“Hey, look,” you say, before he can speak. “I know this isn’t – I know we can’t. I understand. You don’t have to say anything.”

Adam opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, then shuts it again. You know he’s thinking exactly the same things you’ve been thinking. But eventually he speaks.

“I wouldn’t ask you to wait for me,” he begins. “But maybe, later… my body isn’t going to hold out in this sport forever, and if you’re still interested a few years down the line…” His voice peters out. “It’s just a thought.”

You find yourself surprised by the gesture. The Adam you knew in high school couldn’t fathom speaking up about anything that might change the status quo, even at some hypothetical future point. The Adam you knew in high school was afraid – afraid of disapproval, afraid of disappointment, afraid of his father, his classmates, his friends. The Adam you see right now isn’t fearless – but his current fears are grounded, if frustrating in their necessity. You can see a spark in him, a spark that makes his future, and your own, look much more promising. Adam is maybe more a Duck now than he ever was before.

Retirement, if all goes as it should, is still a long way off. Anything could change between now and then. But you’ve got hope, more hope than you had five minutes ago, and you wouldn’t be a Duck if you didn’t live half your life on a wing and a prayer.

You grin. “As long as you don’t lose touch again, hotshot.”

Adam lets out a short, self-deprecating laugh, relief in those deep-set eyes. “No, that definitely won’t happen.”

You lean over and kiss him, while you’ve still got the chance. “Plans for today?”

“Practice. And I’m supposed to have dinner with my parents tonight, before my flight.”

“Well,” you say, thinking of the wooden whistle hanging next to your keys, “I know a few people who’d be mighty interested in seeing you before you take off. Do you think you can squeeze lunch into your schedule?”

“Ducks fly together?” Adam says, and it manages to sound both mocking and hopeful at once.

“Ducks fly together,” you reply, and you kiss him again, just for good measure.


End file.
